


Hiding Me

by Kanana



Category: Original Work
Genre: Bullying, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Esteem Issues, Weight Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-24
Updated: 2018-07-24
Packaged: 2019-06-15 10:31:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15410973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kanana/pseuds/Kanana
Summary: My pain runs deep where no one can see. I intend to keep it that way. I look in the mirror one last time and fix on my mask, I am hiding. Hiding from my parents, from my family, hiding from myself. We all hide behind a mask. Every morning I make mine thicker and stronger. Hide and seek is the only game I was ever any good at, but only the hiding part.





	Hiding Me

Hiding Me

I got off the scale, two-hundred and fifty pounds. How had I gotten to this point? I’ll grant you that I had always been overweight, but this was ridiculous. But could I even lose the weight? I had always been a heavy kid. I wasn’t very old when I could remember my grandmother telling my dance teacher, “My Helen is like my daughter Sarah, she’s just always been big boned. I remember Sarah as a little girl, she was the biggest kid in her class. Big blue eyes and long brown hair, but bigger than the other kids, to me she was always beautiful.” Maybe I really was like my Aunt Sarah. Maybe I was just going to be a big girl. Who was I fooling with the politically correct phrases of my grandmother? I was going to be fat, just like my Aunt Sarah. I had seen my Aunt Sarah. She had moved to Alaska after my tenth birthday, but she had been back to visit since then. She was a big woman. In fact, these days she was so overweight she had a hard time moving. My Aunt Sarah could lose a hundred pounds and she would still be a big woman. I was next, I knew I was next! All my life I had been compared to my Aunt Sarah. It would be ridiculous to think that I would be able to escape getting fat if she hadn’t been able to do so. I looked in the mirror; even if I sucked in I still had a belly. I saw my stretch marks and the cellulite that decorated my body. Disgusting! I was disgusting and gross. I had always thought that overweight people were gross, even as a young girl. Fate is filled with irony, and the biggest irony is that even while I had hated being compared to Aunt Sarah while I was growing up, I was indeed just like her, in the way that I had feared the most. I was fat! Of course, many of the women in my family were overweight. My Aunt Sarah was fat, and my grandmother could just barely move. Most of the women in my family got to that point eventually, some sooner rather than later. I would be sooner reaching that point, at this rate, reaching the point where I was so overweight I couldn’t move. Just another victim to the family curse!

I couldn’t help but wonder how my mother had escaped. Was it just genetics? My grandmother had excused her weight gain as being a side effect of having six kids, but my mother had five children and she was still slender and athletic. My Aunt Sarah had only one child, but I had never had any children. I didn’t want to imagine how large I would be if I ever did decide to have kids! My grandmother had been slender when she got married. I had been fat all my life. How big would I get if I got pregnant? It hadn’t affected my mother but then I had never been very lucky. I had the wrong genes, right? None of my siblings were overweight. Yet if it wasn’t my genetics, what had I done wrong? Most of my siblings were still young. I was the only one that had graduated from high school. Looking back at my high school years, I had been overweight then. Looking back at my middle school years, I had been overweight then. Maybe I had been slim in kindergarten, but who remembers what they looked like in kindergarten? I knew I had been fat by third grade. I could remember my cousins making my third-grade year miserable, teasing me about my weight. Mark was the worst of the bunch. Did he mean to be cruel? I doubt it. I think he was jealous. I was the first granddaughter after my mother had had several miscarriages. I was a sickly baby and a princess from the moment of my birth. It was only when I was about eight that I had begun to gain weight and had lost my princess status. By the time I entered third grade, I was a chubby kid and a prime target for bullying. This led to a vicious cycle, one from which I might never be rescued. I would come home from school, upset because of the things I had heard through the day, and find something to eat, preferably chocolate. Just for a moment, I would feel good, however short that moment might be. Then I would bury myself in a book and between the candy and the fantasy lands I chose, I could escape the events of the day.

Then there was the bullying. Mark was smart, he never left bruises where they couldn’t be explained away, and he never did it where an adult was near. Or if he did do it when an adult was near they didn’t catch on to the hits, emotional and physical. It was subtle things, like saying that my voice was annoying him in the car, upon which the adults would ask me to be quiet. Playing tag and ensuring that I was tagged first, and as roughly as he could manage. The worst was the things he would tell the other children about me. The clubs I couldn’t join, or the embarrassing situations he would set up. There was the time he used handcuffs to attach me to a tree. Our grandfather was a policeman and the handcuffs were real. Then he left me there. Later he brought his mother to release me. However, he told her that he had told me that the handcuffs were real, but I had insisted upon closing them anyway. After this story, my claim that he attached me to the tree seemed like a lie to convict the boy who had just been trying to save me. Maybe in a way, he was trying to save me, for although he was the one that handcuffed me, he also brought his mother to help me. He could have left me there much longer until someone found me. Maybe he felt bad. I am simply glad that he brought help before it got dark.

There was no relief from the constant bullying. He did it all the time, I couldn’t run from him, or the other kids. I was related to most of them. They were at every family party and every event I attended. My only way to elude my tormentors was in the recesses of my own mind, and in the euphoria that something sweet could give me for a short time. Some people are addicted to drugs, some people are addicted to alcohol, I became addicted to food. I thought that somehow that the small lift in mood it gave me was worth any side effects, including fulfilling my dreaded destiny of looking like Aunt Sarah. In hindsight, I was a fool. I loved food, all food. It wasn’t just candy. I liked chocolate, ice cream, cupcakes, bread, chips, anything and everything I could obtain. And I would do a lot to obtain such treats.

In fact, it became a drag on my parents financially. My mother would buy a box of cookies and I would eat it in one sitting. She got to the point where she would hide anything she bought that was junk food. It didn’t matter, though. If anything, it raised the appeal of taking the items. I had to find them and take them in such a way that she couldn’t be sure it was me that took them. I saw it as a form of control, I think. I saw myself as being so incredibly clever as I looked through closets and under beds for the sweets my mother had hidden. Maybe in hindsight, I did know how I had been different from my siblings, but would it have made a difference? After all, I was just like Aunt Sarah! Aunt Sarah had read books to escape; Aunt Sarah even shared my eating habits. My grandmother had told me the stories about all the times Sarah had taken food from the pantry as a kid. She had even laughingly told the story of how Sarah had eaten a whole dessert that had been meant for a company dinner. It wasn’t my fault I had gotten overweight, it was just the family curse. It was a curse I couldn’t escape, a curse that I used to justify my poor eating habits.

After all, I had a good reason for eating the food I had eaten as a kid. I had a better reason for hiding in a corner with a book. Among other things the kids were less likely to bully me if I stayed quiet and out of the way. Between the books and the food, I received my comfort. It separated me from the scary world of socializing. They kept me sane, I couldn’t afford to lose one or the other. My two fixes became all I thought about, all I dreamed about and made a mental barrier between my inner self and the taunts and hits I could not escape in any other way. We all hide behind a mask; this mask protects us from the world around us. I built mine thickly and heavily, hiding from the world, but also from myself.

My parents and family saw I was miserable, they saw I was gaining weight. What they didn’t see was the bullying. So, their answer seemed simple, “Send her out to play with her cousins. The girl is always reading and always eating, what she needs is to get some exercise, rather than curling up in the corner with a book. Make her go play with her cousins.” This was the wrong approach. Nothing made me more miserable than playing with my cousins. My family was ignoring the larger problem in my life, by concentrating on the smaller problem of my weight. They saw I was gaining weight. They saw that I was lonely. They didn’t see the bullying. They didn’t see the fact that I had no confidence. They never saw how much I was breaking on the inside. They did not see how broken I already was. All they saw was the weight and the adults discussed how chubby I was getting among themselves. This seemed to serve, to Mark and my other cousins, as a sign that they were justified in their treatment of me and my misery increased exponentially. This misery continued to increase because of my family’s newfound urge to encourage me to play with my cousins, as a means to make me more active.

I still remember when my uncle came over to babysit when I was about ten years old. He, like most of the family, believed that my problem solely stemmed from inactivity. His genius response was to send me out into the backyard to play with his darling children. It didn’t take very long before Mark, and his siblings had me tied to a lawn chair. They then proceeded to throw a basketball at my head and catch it centimeters away from my face. A little later they blindfolded me. I didn’t know where the insults were going to come from next or the next blow for that matter. I couldn’t see, and I could just barely hear. All I knew was that I was miserable and that my misery was making “my friends” happy. I didn’t cry. I never cry. But that night I found a cheesecake in the fridge. I couldn’t control being forced to go outside. I couldn’t control the insults I heard. I couldn’t control that basketball headed for my face. I couldn’t do a thing about the bruises on my arm from where the rope had been. But I ate that whole cheesecake. For a moment I ran away, but I only escaped for a moment.

It was always this way. Even if the adults were with us, I would accidentally be tripped while we played soccer. Somebody would just so happen to tackle me roughly as we played tag. The ball always was aimed for my face if we played baseball and I was always the last one chosen for any team. It is easy to guess that snowball fights and dodgeball became, see how many times we can all aim for Helen. The only game I excelled at was hide and seek. I wasn’t good at much, but I could hide. I hid from the other kids. I hid from my parents. I hid candy, I hid from the world and I hid from myself. Maybe I still was hiding.

I looked in the mirror. There was too much of me, that was the problem. I turned around and looked at my back where my bra cut into the fat rolls. I saw my sagging thighs, my large posterior. Did I have bones? I couldn’t see them, maybe that is why I had never broken one. The other kids had broken my heart but couldn’t find my bones. I almost chuckled at that thought, as I turned back around to face my reflection. But then I remembered how much my fat shakes when I laugh, and I remembered not to laugh. Besides, I have an ugly laugh. It’s too loud. One of my cousins used to say I laughed like a hyena, because it was too loud and lasted too long, and that my body jiggled. He said that I should avoid laughing because it made me look even more ugly. I try not to laugh or smile these days. My smile is ugly too. It’s too big, and I draw my upper lip showing my gums when I smile. Like a donkey! Another cousin said it was “the stupidest thing he ever saw.” Right up there with watching me dance. I danced when I was a kid, but one of my cousins told me it made my fat jiggle and drew attention to how clumsy I was. My parents still don’t know why I begged them to pull me out of dance. My mother protested the most, “But Helen, you love to dance. You have from the time you were a little baby, every time you heard music you would bounce up and down as you laughed and laughed.” She didn’t see that was the problem, I bounced. My cousin wasn’t the first one to tell me that, one of the other little girls had said it too. “Look at Helen, her whole-body bounces when she dances.” I couldn’t do it anymore. I’m unattractive enough. I don’t need to draw attention to my flaws on a stage. Besides, I had thought that the girl was nice. I knew she wasn’t my friend. But who would want to be my friend?

I almost had a friend once. There was a new kid entering the school, in mid-year. Allyson hadn’t heard about me yet and since she was transferring in the middle of the year, I thought, maybe she would have a hard time fitting in. Maybe the other kids would be so busy with their premade groups she would need a friend. I could be that friend. I knew I could be, I would be the person that insured she got picked when we played sports. I could be a good friend. I would be loyal and devoted and defend her if anyone tried to pick on her. I had it all planned out. For a while; I thought she liked me. Okay, so Allyson had always thought I was ugly and told me so, but I couldn’t blame her for that, I thought I was ugly. Then Mark came to me. He and Allyson had started dating. Initially, I had been thrilled by this thought. Allyson was my friend, and I had selfishly thought that she would convince Mark to stop bullying me. I should have known better. Instead, it had the opposite effect. Mark came to me one day and said that Allyson had asked him to speak to me. Mark asked me to avoid Allyson and to stop speaking to her. He said I was annoying her and my friendship was making her miserable. He said that I was causing the other kids to avoid her and that if I really cared about her I would leave her alone. As he saw it, I was a social freak and my friendship was destroying her ability to make other friends. I didn’t believe him! I couldn’t believe him! Allyson was my friend. Allyson would never ask me to stop hanging out with her, she was my only friend and a nice person. She wouldn’t do that to me. So, he brought Allyson to talk to me. She was crying, she said she felt bad telling me this because I had been nice to her when nobody else had been, but that she would appreciate it if I didn’t talk to her at school. I guess, rather than helping her, I had made fifth grade hard on her. The other kids had decided that if she hung out with me, they couldn’t hang out with her. I didn’t know. I didn’t know I was hurting her. I think Mark knew that he had been the one to approach me, but he almost looked sorry for me when Allyson said her piece. Sorry and a trifle guilty, maybe he was growing up and was starting to understand the pain he caused. Not that it changed anything, in my mind he was the reason our friendship couldn’t work. He had made me socially unacceptable. No amount of being sorry could change that now. But I couldn’t do that to someone else. I promised myself I would never hurt another person by forcing them to be my friend ever again. I would destroy them by offering them friendship. It was too cruel to the other kid, I couldn’t ask that of them. I was the social outcast, there was no reason to force another kid to share my misery. I almost cried that night. I was a fool! I had thought I would find a friend, I should’ve known. I should’ve known.

The window was open leading to the street. I could see the new neighbor outside, walking his dog. Our new neighbor, Chris, was a very attractive man. He had tried talking to me last week, as I walked to the car to head to work, but I had ignored him and continued on my way. I was out of his league. If he decided to be friends with me it’d be nothing but trouble. Grandma thought he was attracted to me. Her reasoning is that “Aunt Sarah’s husband thought she was beautiful.” I wasn’t that stupid; Chris was way out of my league. I looked in the mirror again as I got dressed for work. I looked better with clothes on. Some of the fat rolls were covered up and the only thing that was ugly was my face. That and my hair. At least Aunt Sarah had long luxurious curly hair that made her look halfway attractive. I looked disparagingly at my hair holding it up to the light. It was thin and straight, baby fine and stripped. It was only shoulder length, but even at that length, it was unhealthy. It’s also that color that can’t quite decide if it is blond or brown, like dirt. Not the rich dirt of a garden, but the unhealthy clay that is underneath the topsoil. In that type of dirt, nothing grows. Nothing can, it is thin and stunted and purposeless. That is my hair, thin, stunted, scarce in color, length, and volume. Nothing like Aunt Sarah’s beautiful thick hair. I also didn’t have her sparkling blue eyes. My eyes are brown. Not even a dark chocolate brown like mom’s but a watery brown that is ugly, just like my hair, and my face, and my figure. I am ugly. I always have been. Even as a baby. My mother swears otherwise, but mothers always think their children are beautiful. Even when they are not. My little sister is beautiful. She is sixteen and has long brown hair that, like Aunt Sarah’s curls, is opulent and beautiful. It is like dark chocolate, rich and full, and her eyes are almost black in their darkness of color. She also has a perfect figure. It’s almost annoying.

My little sister is embarrassed by me. I just figured that out last night. She brought her boyfriend over. She introduced him to my mother and father, and my siblings. But she had asked me to be away that night. I should have known. I was away most of the night, I went to the movies, watched some cheesy chick flick, and bought myself some popcorn. But I guess I should have picked a longer movie. I walked in the door just as he was about to leave. I should have stayed at movie-theater for just a little longer. Just five more minutes would’ve done it. I didn’t. I wish I would’ve just waited, just a little longer. But I came home and as I walked in the door my sister hastily explained my presence saying, “And this is Helen, a girl who stays with us.” My mother interrupted her with a stern, “You mean that’s Helen, your sister.” Samantha’s face burned with embarrassment, but even then, I didn’t get it. I guess I couldn’t even imagine the truth. Later I understood. I was sitting in the book room reading my book. My fat pooled around me in the chair, my hair in a diminutive bun on top of my head. My ratty pajama pockets stuffed with Oreos. Then I heard Samantha come down and begin to yell at my mother, “Mom, how could you do that to me? Tell Josh that Helen is my sister. Now he’ll probably start to believe that I’ll look like that when I get older. Can you imagine looking like Helen? Especially me looking like Helen! So, would never happen. I mean, we all know what Helen is! Even you Mom…” I couldn’t bear to hear any more. I closed my book, put it on the chair and ran up the stairs. I didn’t cry.

That night I lay there on my bed and wondered why I was here. What purpose did I have in life? I was ugly and unwanted and even my own family was ashamed of me. The ball of hurt in my throat seemed to choke me that sleepless night. As the ceiling fan was spinning in slow circles on my ceiling, my mind was spinning in slow circling thoughts. I couldn’t help but think that I didn’t deserve to live. A creature so ugly and so much of burden upon those around her should be eradicated from the earth. Maybe not eradicated, but surely the lives of those around me would be better if I had never existed. This thought felt like a numb ache next to my heart that converged into my throat, adding to the pain of the trapped tears in my eyes. I was supposed to be like Aunt Sarah, but surely that fate could be avoided if I never got that far, if everything ended now. But I didn’t want to kill myself. I simply wanted to cease existing, to stop hurting, to find relief. I didn’t want death, I wanted relief, and an end, no more. This was the darkest night of my life, never again has my mind wandered this path. I pray it never does again. Morning found me exhausted and still depressed, but I achieved my goal: no one knew of my distress but me. I had kept my secret. I hadn’t cried.

I didn’t cry last night, I’m not crying now. But in the empty house staring at the mirror in my bathroom, my throat still hurts. I still feel numb. My chest still aches, and I wish I would cry. I wish I could cry. Any feeling would have to be better than this. This hurt. I hurt. It hurts. It is hurting. I just want it to stop. I just want to stop hurting. I feel as if I have been bleeding and hurting from the inside out as long as I can remember. My pain runs deep where no one can see. I intend to keep it that way. I look in the mirror one last time and fix on my mask, I am hiding. Hiding from my parents, from my family, hiding from myself. We all hide behind a mask. Every morning I make mine thicker and stronger. Hide and seek is the only game I was ever any good at, but only the hiding part.

I hear the phone ring and rush to answer it. It is my grandmother. Aunt Sarah had another baby. My grandmother is ecstatic. She talks about the baby. “Oh, I’m sure it will have Sarah’s hair and eyes. My Sarah was such a pretty baby, I just knew that when she got married she would have beautiful children. That beautiful hair, and those amazing eyes.” I couldn’t help but remember my hair and eyes, I couldn’t help wishing that they were beautiful too. My grandmother went on, “Of course, I do have beautiful children. All six are just absolutely stunning if I do say so myself. Of course, your Uncle Michael, my oldest boy, is just so athletic. Your mommy too did I ever tell you, princess, about how good she was in Karate growing up. I told your daddy when they got married that he better treat her well because she was full of spice and knew how to use it. Your mommy has such a pretty figure too, so tall and elegant.” I would never be like Uncle Michael, and I definitely would never be like my pretty mother. With her tall straight elegant figure and long dark brown hair and eyes. My mother was a pretty woman. I would’ve loved to have been a pretty woman.

I was so lost in my own thoughts that I almost missed my grandmother prattling on in the background, but the essence of the conversation remained the same. To be honest with you, my grandmother believes a conversation means she talks, and someone else listens, so she didn’t even notice my distraction. She spoke, of course, of course, of Sarah’s hair and eyes. Jessica’s ability to cook an excellent meal. The one time I tried to cook I almost burned the house down, I’ll continue to eat McDonald’s, thank you very much. Uncle Scott is an excellent salesman, and has moved rapidly in the company he works in. Uncle Greg is District Attorney and has a huge house with a swimming pool. My grandmother just loved how he had set it up so beautifully.

Had I heard about Mark? He and Allyson had set the date. “Your Cousin Mark, sweetheart, is so lucky to be marrying his childhood sweetheart. You and Allyson used to be close, didn’t you Helen? Too bad you started avoiding the poor girl after that, you must be nice to her now. After all, she will be family soon. Doesn’t Sam have a new boyfriend? She mentioned that she was going to bring him home to meet the family. I do hope everyone was kind to him, she seems to really like him. Joan mentioned to me the other day that she is going back to school to be a CPA. Your mother must be so proud of her.” I should have kept my mouth shut. I should have just listened to her talk. But I asked anyway, “Grandma, you always talk about Aunt Sarah’s eyes, my mother’s figure, and Joan’s intelligence; and you're proud of them.” At this juncture, my grandmother interrupted me to say, “Yes, they do, they make me so proud of them, so talented and beautiful.” Despite her interruption, I continued with my question. “Grandma, do I make you proud of me, and if yes, what about me makes you proud of me?” For the first time since I had picked up the phone, silence stretched over the line. Then the doorbell rang. I have never been so thankful for an interruption in a conversation in my life. I said to my grandmother, “Hey grandma, I have to go answer the door. Love you!” And then hung up before she could say goodbye. I had heard enough anyway, she was proud of the rest of my family. Yet when she was asked if I made her proud, my normally loquacious grandmother was silent.

That single fact hurt more than Samantha’s betrayal or Mark’s taunts. I would not cry, I do not cry, it does not matter how much it may hurt. I heard the doorbell ring again, and again, and again. I slowly made my way to the door and opened it. It was our new neighbor Chris. He was a tall, blond, and attractive psychiatrist. Even Allyson and Sam had thought he was attractive when he showed up in the neighborhood. They had watched him move in from the front porch and had marveled at his handsome face and figure. I had too, but I knew better than to dream. Guys who look like Chris don’t even look at fat, ugly, wallflowers. I knew that. My grandmother was dreaming to think he was interested in me. Even she wouldn’t be able to think of why. And now when I was seconds away from tears, and looking my worst, here he was on our front step. “Hi,” he said, “I’m your new…” then he stopped and said quietly, “Are you okay?"

I couldn’t help it. I began to cry! Torrents of tears and hurt came out at that moment. For years I had hidden, and no one had thought to look for me. No one had seen my hurt. I hadn’t wanted them to see it. I had stopped laughing and stopped smiling and no one had noticed or cared. For years they had ignored me, and I was happy they ignored me. I was happy if they did anything but hurt me. But now at my most vulnerable, that kind word from a stranger had started an emotional cleansing I had long needed. He didn’t say a word, he just took my hand and pulled me out of the house and on to the front steps and let me cry, just sitting beside me and watching. Every once in a while, touching my shoulder and letting me know he was there. After my tears had worn themselves out, he said again, very gently, “Are you okay?” That poor man probably regretted asking, I told him, “NO!” and began to unload to this poor stranger. I’m not sure I even recognized at that moment that I was talking to a very attractive man. Goodness knows I told him everything. That poor, poor man had to learn of every escape, that only lasted a moment, every tear I hadn’t cried, and every insult I hadn’t responded to. He must have been a patient man. He sat there and listened to every word, with so much kindness written on his handsome face.

When I finally finished my rant, he looked at me for a few moments, and then took my hands in his and said, “Helen, you are the most beautiful woman I have ever met in my life, and it’s not doing you any good until you believe it.” I cannot tell you the sensations of disbelief that filled me at this moment. I almost believed that he was toying with me or insulting my intelligence. I knew better than to think that I was beautiful. I had both a mirror and eyes. In fact, I had spent the last half hour using both and the results had not been beautiful. The only possible conclusion of my personal perusal was that I was hideously ugly with my thin hair watery eyes and all that fat. But Chris gave me no time to object to his analysis. Instead, he carried on, expressing his thoughts. Perhaps he knew better than to listen to my thoughts on the matter, the man is a psychiatrist after all. Thus, he continued, “You always have been and always will be beautiful, and looking at you right now, I can tell you honestly.” Honestly, yeah right, there was no honesty in what he was saying, I couldn’t even look at him and see his pity and his lies in his eyes. He wasn’t going to have that, however, and his voice was full of authority when he said, “Look at me, Helen. Look me in the eyes.” The honesty and earnestness I saw there made my conviction of my own ugliness stutter. How could I ignore the truth in the blue depths of his eyes? He said. “In my eyes, you don’t have to lose a pound to be beautiful. I like you just the way you are, and people like your cousin and sister are stupid not to see you as I do.” I couldn’t help but wonder if I was stupid to miss seeing in myself what he seemed to see. He had just met me. What did he see? Apparently not the fat thin-haired girl I had seen in the mirror that morning. Apparently, he did not see the tear-swollen still fat wreck I must look like now. Crying doesn’t generally do favors to one’s complexion. I couldn’t help wondering, what did those blue eyes see?

But he continued, “If you were comfortable with your weight I wouldn’t say a word. But I think we’re agreed when I say, you aren’t comfortable with your weight.” Gee, how did he ever guess I wasn’t comfortable with my weight? Maybe my tears or my long overcomplicated story. I couldn’t help it, I laughed a little wryly at his observation; that was the understatement of the year. “So, I want to help you to diet, not because I think you need to change, but because I want you to see what I see.” He looked a little worried at this juncture and his blue eyes pierced mine as he said, “Do you understand, and will you trust me?” Trust was a hard concept for me, but something in me made me trust this man. There was no other answer but, “Yes.” He seemed overjoyed when I responded in the affirmative. “Wait right here,” he hurriedly said as he jumped up and ran to his house. He came back with pamphlet after pamphlet on dieting. I made tea, and well, I never made it to work that day.

We talked for hours there in the kitchen. Initially, we just talked about dieting, diets that might work for me, gyms I might like, things like that. But eventually, I asked him why he got into psychiatry. It apparently was a heavy question. He was silent for a long time, and then he said slowly, “When I was a young boy, there was a girl in my school that was overweight. We all teased her. In ninth grade, she overdosed on Benadryl and died. At the funeral, her mother told me she had been cutting for years. She was depressed, and we drove her over the edge. I don’t know if it was something I had said that day or something somebody else had said, that made her decide to kill herself. I may never know, but it was a sobering realization. At seventeen, you just don’t think people can die. People aren’t supposed to die so young, all the potential she had died with her, and I can’t help believing that I killed her. That I didn’t just kill her, I killed everyone and everything she might have been. Because I was a stupid kid, thinking if someone else’s house burned down, mine looked better. Her pain didn’t make me more popular, it did nothing for me, not really. But it killed her. That is what made me go into psychiatry; I wanted to make up, if I anyone can make up for something like that, in my own way, for her death. I guess I keep thinking that maybe, someday, I can help someone in the way I never helped her. In the way, I should have helped her. If I can’t help her, I feel like I owe it to her to never allow another person to bear that pain alone again. You remind me of her, so very much. The way you look, the way you act. You remind me of her, right before she died.” By this point, tears were streaming down his face and his pain, his grief, and his self-loathing filled the room. “I think that’s why I’ve been trying so hard to introduce myself to you. Both the other day by your car, and when I actually came to your house today. You look so much like her. Your face, your actions, it’s been like living next door to her ghost. I had to get to know you. I couldn’t live, seeing that again. I couldn’t stand it.”

His pain was palpable, as he spoke, and I could see his eyes begging me for forgiveness. He had driven another girl to commit suicide, and now he wanted my forgiveness. As if I could forgive him. Who would’ve guessed that he had hiding just like I was? He was hiding behind a mask, pretending to survive. He was hiding, and I was hiding. And it made me wonder, how many other people hide? Is everyone in the world hiding behind a mask? Was teasing me Mark’s mask? Was my grandmother’s inane chatter hers? What pain were they hiding? Looking at Mark’s tear-filled eyes still begging me to give him absolution, I knew I was done hiding. Did it matter what Mark said, or what anyone said, for that matter? I couldn’t make everyone happy anyway. I wanted to lose weight, but I was going to do it for me. I was going to escape the family curse. Not the curse of being overweight, but our bigger curse, judging others by their appearances. I had judged myself by my physical appearance, and I had judged Chris, based on his. I swore that it would be the last time. From now I was only going to look a little deeper, from now on I was going to peer behind the mask. Starting now, I looked Chris in the eye and said, “Chris, she wouldn’t blame you, and I want to thank you for today. I needed that. I needed to learn to look at a little deeper at everyone, to look deeper than a few fat rolls and a few taunts.” He smiled at that, a little tearfully, “And I’m going to start with myself. From now on, I’m not making any apologies for my weight or my hair or my clumsiness. I still want to lose weight, but no matter what happens, you’ve made me realize that I deserve to be loved as me. Because I’m worthy of being loved, by just being me.”


End file.
